Friday, November 24, 2006

Writing Lessons From Number Two

Son Number Two likes to write stories and this morning he has kicked me off my laptop so he can compose his latest masterpiece. If you haven't played hours and hours of Sonic DX on a Nintendo Gamecube then you wouldn't understand the plot and characterization. In any event, he has created a couple of paragraphs that are loosely coordinated and seems to be interested in doing more. He's peppering me with questions about spelling and punctuation while I type this and some are kind of enlightening. A few minutes ago he asked me how to punctuate dialogue when someone is both yelling and asking a question. He wanted to end the sentence with two exclamation points and two question marks. His question to me was whether or not to switch them around like this: !?!? or keep them grouped together like this: !!??. This caused me to think a moment. How would one use those punctuation marks? When I suggested that he end the question with one question mark and then put in the attribution 'he shouted' I could see him thinking about it. It was a thrill to watch several synapses suddenly make new connections in his brain. With his permission I will likely post his story here.